Lonely cardiac pateints are at higher risk of death

Cardiac patients who tend to feel lonely are more likely to die in a year of getting discharged from the hospital, a new study highlighted.

While lonely men were twice more likely to die compared to those who aren't women were at nearly 3 times higher risk of dying than other women who aren't lonely.

Loneliness should be priotitised in public health initiatives and regarded as a legitimate health risk in people who have a serious illness, researchers stated in the study.

Previous research suggests that loneliness and poor social support are associated with a heightened risk of developing and dying from coronary artery disease. But it's not clear if other types of heart disease might also be influenced by feelings of loneliness, and if living alone might be as influential as feeling lonely.

To explore this further, researchers looked at the one-year health outcomes of patients admitted to a specialist heart centre with either ischemic ( coronary ) heart disease, abnormal heart rhythm, heart failure or valve disease, over the course of a year in 2013-2014.

Most of them were ( 70 %) were men with an average age of 66.

On discharge from the centre, 13, 443 ( 53 % of the total) completed validated questionnaires on their physical health, psychological well0being and quality of life and their levels of anxiety and depression.

Moreover, the patients were also quizzed about health behaviours, including smoking, drinking and how often they took their prescribed medicines.

National data were used to find out if they lived alone or with other people.

Those who said they felt lonely were nearly 3 times as likely to be anxious and depressed and to report a significantly lower quality of life as those who said they didn't feel lonely.

One year later, researchers checked national registry data to see what had happened to the patients' cardiac health as well as how many of them had died.

They found that irrespective of the diagnosis, loneliness was associated with significantly poorer physical health after a year.

After taking account of potentially influential factors, including health behaviours, lonely women were nearly 3 times as likely to have died from any cause after a year as women who didn't feel lonely.

Similarly, lonely men were more than twice as likely to have died from any cause.

The significant differences in risk between those who felt lonely and those who didn't, suggest that health-related behaviours and underlying conditions can't fully explain the associations found, said researchers.

Although living alone wasn't associated with feeling lonely, it was associated with a lower risk of anxiety / depression than in those who loved with other people.

And it was associated with a higher ( 39%) risk of poor cardiac health among men.

Previous studies indicate that women have larger social networks than men, so separation, divorce or the death of a partner, may disadvantage men more, suggests the researchers, by way of an explanation for this particular finding.

This is an observational study, and as such, can't establish a cause.

However, the finding are in line with previous research, suggesting that loneliness is associated with changes in cardiovascular, neuroendocrine and immune function as well as unhealthy lifestyle choices which impact negative health outcomes, the researchers stated.

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11 Signs You Might Be Headed For a Heart Attack

Try to notice if you've any of these symptoms, then you can change your habits and thus prevent heading for a heart attack.

1) You get angry over the littlest things.
Tend to morph into the Hulk when you’re upset? Those fiery emotions can drastically increase your risk for a heart attack. Researchers  questioned 313 patients who had suffered suspected heart attacks about their anger levels before the onset of symptoms. They found that patients were 8.5 times more likely to have a heart attack in the two hours following an intense outburst of anger, defined as “very angry, body tense, clenching fists or teeth.” The more often you’re angry, the higher your chances for a heart attack.

2) You spend most of your time in front of the screen.
Yes, that includes working on your computer. A study reports that people who watch TV or work on a computer for four or more hours a day increase their risk of an event associated with cardiovascular disease, like a heart attack, by 125 percent. Long periods of sitting deplete the body’s supply of lipoprotein lipase, an enzyme that breaks down fat and prevents clogged arteries. If you spend most of your day plopped behind a desk, take a brief walk after every 20 minutes or try a standing desk. You can burn 30 percent more calories when you stand than when you sit. 

3) You sleep less than 6 hours each night.
Many adults struggle to get the recommended seven to nine hours of sleep each night, but consistently missing that mark could be deadly. A study found that Japanese men who got less than six hours of sleep were five times more likely to have a heart attack than men who slept seven or eight hours a night. Another study  found the same risk applied to Japanese women who got less than six hours of sleep.

4) You live in a highly polluted place-
Smog is just as bad for your heart as it is for your lungs. Researchers used hourly air pollution measurements to determine how exposure to particulate matter (small combustion particles that come from fuel burning and vehicle emissions) affected patients in this area who had heart attacks. They found that exposure to high concentrations of air pollution increased the likelihood of a heart attack by 48 percent in the two hours before patients first experienced heart attack symptoms. The risk went up to 69 percent when people were exposed to high levels of air pollution for 24 hours before the onset of symptoms. 

5) It’s Daylight Saving Time-
When researchers examined three years of a hospital records to track the number of heart attacks that required stent insertions, they found that the frequency of these procedures fluctuated when Daylight Saving Time started and ended. On the Monday after “springing ahead” an hour, there was an 24 percent increase in heart attacks. (However, on the Tuesday after “falling back,” there were 21 percent fewer daily heart attacks). Since the total heart attack counts for those weeks were not drastically different from other weeks, researchers determined that the time changes didn’t necessarily make the heart attacks happen, but rather made them likely to occur sooner than they otherwise would have. This is probably due to disrupted sleep-wake cycles and increased stress at the start of a new week of work.

6) You're divorced
Divorce can cause literal heartache. Researchers conducted an 18-year-study of nearly 16,000 men and women between the ages of 45 and 80 who had been married at least once. Every two years, researchers assessed the participants’ marital status and overall health. Divorced women were 25 percent more likely to have a heart attack than those who stayed married. Women who had two or more divorces were 77 percent more likely to have a heart attack. As for the men, the risk of heart attack stayed the same regardless of whether they were married or divorced—at first. But if they divorced at least twice, their heart attack risk increased by 30 percent. 

7) You live in a place which has extreme temperatures
 Studies show that both extreme cold and extreme heat can put people at risk for heart attacks. Using data from cardiac patients , scientists found that exposure to temperatures lower than 17º F in the two days prior to a heart attack increased patients’ risk by 36 percent. On the other end of the spectrum,  researchers found that once the temperature reaches 68º F, each increase of 1.8º F increased the risk of heart attack by 2 percent over the next one to six hours. On the first day of a hot spell, that risk jumps up to 6.5 percent per 1.8º F increase.

8) You experienced a natural disaster-
Experiencing a hurricane or earthquake devastate your hometown not only affects you mentally and emotionally but physically as well. Researchers studied the number of patients that were admitted with heart-related problems in the years after Hurricane Katrina hit the area in 2005. They found that the number of people admitted to the hospital for heart attacks increased three-fold in the ten years after Katrina, compared to the number of admissions in 2003 and 2004. Patients were also more likely to have heart attack risk factors after the hurricane, including high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, and diabetes. 

9) You didn't go to a college-
The four or more years you spend in college may be good for more than a diploma. A study published , analyzed data from more than 267,000 Australian men and women. The results showed that people with no certifications or degrees were more than twice at risk of a heart attack compared to those with a university degree or higher. Bottom line: The more time you spend in school, the lower your risk for a heart attack.

10) You're down with flu-
The cardiologist has long recommended that those with heart disease get annual flu shots, but new research shows just how important that shot is. New research published looked at 364 people hospitalized for heart attacks and found that they were six times more likely to have a heart attack in the week after being infected with the flu. If you're feeling under the weather, look out for these signs of a heart attack.

11) Your mother had a heart attack-
Or maybe it was your father, or grandparent, or siblings. No matter which relative it was, the doctor says that heart disease and risk factors for heart disease are strongly linked to family history. There are at least 67 sites in the DNA sequence, or variants, that can increase your risk of a heart attack, and as a Dr. said, "Each of these variants raises the relative risk of cardiovascular disease by about 10%. But if you have a number of them, it adds up." The good news is, having a family history of heart attacks don't guarantee you will have one. Actively maintaining a healthy lifestyle can lower your overall risk. 

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